As you may have read below, the format of this website has changed. We're now doing rants of all shapes and sizes, and even though movies will still play a big role in the topics of discussion on this blog, it's time to branch out. Also, as J-Man is the new mantle of our colleague, and he has forsaken green for orange, I will be now assuming this colour font, as it is more suitable for my nickname (ahem...you know...Frankenstein Monster...green?...philistines).
Anyhow, I will be throwing some book reviews in where I feel warranted, and in this case, I definitely feel it's warranted. It's a book of poetry from first time author Rashmi Pluscec, available online only, through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Chapters, etc. So why pray tell, would I pick up a book of poetry? Well, for your information, I have depth! I have sophistication! I have class! It's not all about shits and giggles, I'll have you know! Eh...where was I? Oh yes, so this is a book of poetry. In case you've been living underneath a rock, poetry does not need to rhyme anymore, and some of the best poetry written is about personal stuff that has meaning to the author. It doesn't have to be autobiographical per se, but the best written stuff (in my opinion), but it has to have heart and emotion. Poetry, due to its format, does not give a lot of time to tell a story, so it's got to go for the knockout punch, early.
Okay, so that's Poetry 101. So, how is this book? Excellent...which is why I'm writing about it. It's dark, it's melancholy, it's sad, it's happy, it's optimistic, it's pessimistic, it's all of that, and more. Poems that stand out for me are "A Shrinking World" (my favourite of the whole bunch), "Circle of Life", "Beyond the Rainbow", and "A Dedication". This is just a small smattering of the poems found in the book, and none of them could really be called bad, because they deal with poetry and it's most fundamental level: the ability to invoke strong feelings. This doesn't mean happy feelings, necessarily (I mean, A Shrinking World is an astute observation on how we fail to have the grandness of yesteryear in today's society, and Circle of Life ends with the line "And species upon species became extinct", so make your own conclusion from that), but it is well-written, and it does play to the emotional heart strings.
The poetry is suitable for the name of the book, too: Chaos. A chaos of emotions. Personally, one of my biggest pet peeves is when the title is a mis-direction of the content. To touch on movies for a second, remember "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" I'll give it away and tell you: boredom! I mean, If I call a movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", you can be damn sure there's going to be a weird monster that we can't identify, eating some guy named Gilbert Grape! Look at "The Barbarian Invasion", whic his Quebec film about a man dying of cancer. Hello? Where's my Barbarians? Where's my invasion? Argh! Okay, off topic, but sorry, I have the tendency to rant when the subject comes up. Anyhow, Chaos is a big smorgasbord of feelings, of both the light and the dark (as you can see from the cover of the book above), and speaks of a writer that is conflicted, of a person who sees the light and the dark of our way of life. If the book had been all dark poetry, or all light poetry, I might have had different things to say, but because it hits a nice balance, it's a book that is neither too depressing, nor too sappy.
Poetry may be one of the hardest things to write in all of literature. It's hard to manipulate an emotion in a reader, especially into today's day, and age, where we gain a certain smugness about our own so-called intellectual superiority, and take pride in how jaded we've become. It seems as a whole, the population on this continent takes an perverse joy in just how cynical we've all become. Whether it be the pessimism of "A Shrinking World", or the bright wonder of "Beyond the Rainbow", or the explicit joy of "Have You Ever...?", the gratitude of "A Dedication", the claustrophobic gloom of "A Loner", this book has it all. Do yourself a favour, and check it out. If you like good poetry, read this book.
Rating: 5 out of 5.
I bid thee a fond goodnight.
- Stephenstein
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